Category Archives: Czech Republic

Riding back from Zabrze where my colleagues and I were consulting on the privatisation of the local football team, which used to belong to the council. Introducing the lawyer Margaret, who was my colleague for too short a time, despite being such a lovely and charming person. She refuses to sing her wonderful rendition , and then Huli starts a rant and ends up laughing and losing it on camera talking about people throwing their money on the lottery.

What this is, is the second of about four or five Praguevlog videos all taken on a walk the same evening. It carries on from the film A Summer Prague which you’ll find in the Travel and Places category – Czech Republic on this blog. This part starts in the Andel area where I’m looking for something to eat, and then start to walk home, and notice that a lot of the advertising on the sides of the streets as well as the reliefs of the buildings in the area seem to have a 3D motif, such as the U Buldoka sculptured pub sign. It is all in great light and in HD, with a selection of nice background tracks, as in this case, and some effects too now and again. This gives you some of the essence of Prague in the summer.

No music in the sound track of this one, but some more nice music is coming up in later parts of the walk…

What this is is the first of about four or five Praguevlog videos all taken on a walk the same evening. One colleague took me back to Prague from outside in his car – we had been doing a due diligence out towards the West – and I got out a while away from the centre so as to give myself the opportunity for a walk in the lovely weather. I came into the Andel area by tram, which is the part you see here, and then in the forthcoming instalments you’ll see how I walked home from Andel. And it is all in great light and in HD, with a selection of nice background tracks, as in this case, and some effects too now and again. This gives you some of the essence of Prague in the summer.

I forgot that I had this bottle in my briefcase, but naturally the detectors as I passed from streetside to airside at Prague found it.

Now clearly they all recognise me as having been through there eighty or so times before, so there’s no terrorism alarm bells ringing, and you can see how they’re in two minds about whether or not just to let me get on with it. But in the end the three of them say no, they have to do things by the book, which mean that the wine is thrown away.

I’m there saying to them, just take it and drink it yourselves, it’s a sin to throw it away. And of course as they know that I’m a regular, they also know that there’s no risk I’m trying to poison them, give them an exploding oesophagus, or anything like that.

It’s not the loss I’m bothered about. I could make that up just by drinking the free wine that’s flowing like milk and honey (there’s milk and honey too, in the fridge) here in the Lounge. It’s a bit early in the day for me, though, and I’m actually not a big fan of alcohol despite what readers of my blogs and viewers of my vlogs may think.

It is a bit sad that it happened to a present. But most of all it’s pity to see something like that just thrown into a bin and not enjoyed by anybody. When anyone can see there’s no real risk there. It’s just the over-zealous application of a rule book.

That’s the real shock. That’s what’s really saddened me and sent me running to the production corridors of WordPress to get it off my chest.

Here we have, in nice HD coding, a walk around in Prague, showing some of the flavour of the experience of being in the Czech Republic – including this very strange thing that happened to me last Spring.

Here, in the city of Kafka, I was seriously summoned to court without being informed why. Just like Joseph K in ‘Der Prozess‘ or ‘The Trial’ by Kafka. You really couldn’t make it up.

I don’t want to talk about the facts of what the case turned out to be, (especially as one party of it graces some films of mine on YT, which will also be shown here) but to my relief I only actually needed to be a witness. I have no wrongdoing as such on my conscience, but I have been known to sack people, and they get given more rights than I do when it comes to court, even if there’s no earthly justice in it. But this wasn’t even someone I had sacked. Because I didn’t know that, I had to go to the expense of a decent lawyer who naturally deserved to be paid for his appearance despite not in the end having a decisive role. But in the end I didn’t get annoyed about it, as it was something truly Kafkaesque in the city of Kafka which I’ll be able to remember and joke about for the rest of my life.

I also talk a little bit about learning Japanese and the kitsch for sale to tourists in Prague.

I thought I’d spice things up with a poll! Remember this is not the number of cases you’ve seen – you may have been more than once. Count is as number of days you’ve ever had to turn up. Don’t count it if you went along just for entertainment.

Despite the latest travel “advisories”, whatever that horrible concocted word means, warning people to watch their asses in the land of the Pharoahs, a typical one being on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website of HM Government:

This advice has been reviewed and reissued with an amendment to the Travel Summary and Safety and Security section. We advise against all but essential travel to Cairo (all four governorates, including Giza), Alexandria, Luxor and Suez. The nationwide curfew has been extended from 1500-0800 local time. We recommend that British nationals without a pressing need to be in Cairo, Alexandria or Suez leave by commercial means where it is safe to do so. British nationals in other areas of Egypt where there are demonstrations should follow the advice below and stay indoors wherever possible.

and all the scenes in the news of upheaval and revolution going on over there, the selling of “dream holidays” in Egypt by travel agents in the Czech Republic, Poland and other places continues unabated.

Yesterday’s “Hospodarske Noviny” reported that as other countries are doing their best to evacuate their nationals, Czech travel companies are still chartering tourist flights into these destinations. Polish TV news a few days ago reported how some tourists are intentionally trying to get into the areas which have the hottest riots, just as thrill seeking, and advised against people doing so. Maybe they are seeking some practical experience in civil unrest so as to be one jump ahead when it all kicks off over here?

Maybe learning how to turn up the front nozzle of a water cannon so that it only shoots into the air is a valuable survival skill in the decade we have just embarked on. Maybe it’s a handy thing to learn how to dance in front of a tank and get out of the way at the last second if you can’t manage to face it down? With additional activities like flag-burning, molotov-cocktail throwing (alcohol-free ones for the kids) food-hoarding and embassy wall scaling, as well as optional extras like looting and pillaging and dropping bricks from bridges, a holiday in Egypt right now could be the ultimate adventure holiday. Great for corporate teambuilding, I should say.

Or is the new football hooliganism? Will coaches adorned with scarves containing scores of chanting skinheads start turning up at revolutionary hotspots in North Africa? Will motorway service stations turn them away? Will these unrests become like a syndicated event with huge sponsorships and advertising revenues? Will Putin try and snatch “Revolution 2024” from under London’s nose so that he can catch the spend that will become associated with it? Will protestors be asked to show a particular brand of bottled water on their shirts?

In any event, it seems that now more than ever these so-called “last minute” holidays may indeed live up to their inherent promise, in the case of some holidaymakers.

This doesn’t look like I thought it would, but what it is is actually four photos from the International Business Forum website – the Christmas party event at which I was asked to be the auctioneer for the evening’s charity auction, so you can see me here in the best bib and tucker. I just took the ones with me in but you can see more on the site http://www.ibforum.cz

What I found gratifying was that the shots of others taken while I was talking as auctioneer looked as if people were enjoying the humour. They had completely different faces to the ones during the serious bit before where the people running the Pink Crocodile charity talked about the difficult conditions of the kids they are helping. People looked a bit stressed by that, nobody likes suffering, much.

But people gave generously in the auction, we sold everything for good prices, and I hope my jokes didn’t upset too many people!

Some footage from my actual auctioning should be coming up in the not too distant future on video too!

Here we have number 41 in my series of PragueVlogs uploaded here before the other 40 are here because I’m doing 2011 and later video uploads here as they happen and inbetween times the older stuff in chronological order.

This talks a bit about where the channel is going, and if you like you can watch it on a fuller screen and do pauses for some quite panoramic shots of Prague as I keep this one in HD.

At the point where I talk about the midgies on the bridge if you make it full screen and pause it there, you’ll see what I mean by the size of them!